Gone
By Cecily Bryant
We scrape their lives from tents and tarps
as if they were the very refuse themselves
Gone are the scraps of love once present in photographs
and items of past comforts
Now those criminalized for being homeless must retreat
with even less
They must go to nowhere known with no tents, tarps to keep from the rain,
blankets, IDs, or perhaps medicines that keep them alive
Who are we who will jump to help those in a foreign land
or in a domestic disaster as surely we should but will also allow
such crisis in our own midst to be so unaddressed and forgotten?
Where have the people gone to now?
Are they hiding in plain sight?
Cecily Bryant was a longtime resident of West Tisbury who presently lives in Vineyard Haven. Her work has appeared in a number of collections.
Poets with a connection to Martha’s Vineyard are encouraged to submit poems to community@mvtimes.com.
